"Everyone's first comment is, 'Wow, it looks like a hotel,' " said Emily
Simas, a senior resident assistant from Gustine, Calif., as she greeted
gleeful freshmen arriving for student orientation on Thursday, Sept. 19.

"I think the students are really pleased with the building and the size of
their rooms. I've heard no complaints."

Named for former Stanford trustee William Kimball and his wife, Sara,
Kimball Hall is the first new undergraduate residence to be constructed at
Stanford since Governor's Corner opened in 1982.

The $10.75 million H-shaped dormitory houses 199 students in a mix of
single rooms, double rooms and three-room quads. Each of the three floors has
nine-foot ceilings, at least one study room, and men's and women's bathrooms.

Common spaces on the first floor of the center wing include a lounge,
computer room, seminar room, laundry room, game room, TV room, residence
office and kitchenette.

The decor, by Phebe Gregson, is in Mediterranean shades of peach and
cream, with accents of aqua and green. Stained maple hardwood completes the
effect.

According to Robin Hensley, new residences project coordinator in the
Stanford Office of Residential Education, Kimball Hall was planned as a
comfortable home and stimulating educational environment, with maximum
student interaction in mind.

Spaces were planned to allow for small and large group activities and
faculty involvement in programs and classes.

Single rooms in the four-class, co-ed dorm were placed in the middle of
halls so they would be less isolated, while the resident assistants' rooms
were placed where the corridors meet, for maximum visibility.

"This building does not feel institutional at all," said Hensley, who
worked with project manager Olivier Pieron and an advisory group of students,
faculty and staff to plan the building. "I think it is warm and inviting and
timeless."

Modern conveniences

From the outside, Kimball blends in easily with its next- door neighbor,
Branner Hall, built in 1924. The wood-frame structure, designed by Backen
Arrigoni and Ross of San Francisco and constructed by Dowe Inc., is a
contemporary interpretation of the "Stanford look," with red tile roof and
earth stucco finish.

A courtyard in the front -- landscaped for the time being with
drought-resistant shrubs and redwood chips -- looks out onto Escondido Road.

Despite its traditional ambience, Kimball is a dorm for the 21st century.
Each room is wired so that students with personal computers can plug them
right into SUNet, the university's central computer network.

Students who don't have personal computers in their rooms have access to a
first-floor cluster of Macintoshes, supervised by a student computer
coordinator.

Stanford's disabled students will find Kimball Hall particularly inviting.
All of the common spaces were placed on the wheelchair-accessible first
floor, and each first-floor room door has an extra, lower peephole, so that
seated students can see out. The maple modular furniture used throughout the
dorm can be modified to suit disabled students' needs.

Smoke detectors, sprinklers and fire alarms are all state-of-the-art, and
glow-in-the-dark wall strips lead to fire exits along each hallway.

Educational programs

Residence halls at Stanford traditionally offer students far more than a
place to live. They are social and educational centers, providing students
with access to new friends and to activities such as community volunteer
projects and athletic and cultural events.

Kimball Hall's faculty resident fellows this year will be linguistics
Prof. John Rickford and his wife, Angela, who have moved across the street
from Wilbur Hall with their four youngest children -- Shiyama (soon to be a
freshman at UC-San Diego), Russell, Anakela and Luke -- and a dog named
Ebony.

"It's fantastically well equipped -- I particularly like the facilities
students have for studying," said John Rickford of his new home. "I think
it's going to be a great year."

In addition to overseeing the student residence staff, peer advisers and
programming in the new dorm, Rickford will be offering a course in the
Kimball seminar room titled "Inter- and Intra-Ethnic Variation in Urban
Vernacular English."

Probably the only drawback to living in Kimball Hall this year will be the
sound of construction nearby, as workers lay the foundation for Manzanita II,
the second phase of undergraduate housing on the old Manzanita Park trailer
site.

University trustees have authorized just over $12 million for that
project, which will consist of two 100-bed, three- story houses. The houses
should be completed in time for occupancy by September 1992.

What's on the Stanford food service menu these days?

For students in Kimball Hall, the heavy meat-and-potatoes lineup of years
gone by has been replaced by a restaurant-style "scramble system" offering a
soup-salad-pasta bar, hofbrau sandwiches, hot entrees, vegetarian dishes and
drinks.

Each food item is priced according to a point system and deducted from a
quarterly allowance. Students usually use points left over at the end of a
quarter to stock up on snack foods and drinks, which they take back to their
rooms.

Stanford has used a similar point system successfully at Governor's Corner
since 1982, and plans to convert the Stern Hall dining room to a point system
this year.

"We've found that the point system greatly reduces food waste," said Libby
Long, Kimball Hall's food service manager.

She said students also prefer the system because it is fairer than the old
all-you-can-eat approach, which charged light eaters the same price per meal
as those with training-table appetites.

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